A Comparative Study of the Gravity Addition FEM and the Strength Reduction FEM in the Slope Stability Analysis of a Reinforced Soil Slope

By analyzing the stress state on the interface of potential slip surface and geotextile in a reinforced slope, combing with the definition of safety factor, it is concluded that when calculating the safety factor by the Strength reduction FEM, the result is larger, resulting from ignoring the effect of geotextile, but only reducing the cohesion and internal friction angle. For the shortage of Strength reduction FEM in calculating safe factor of reinforced soil slope, this paper brings up the idea that the safe factor of reinforced soil slope could be calculated by Gravity Addition FEM. The algorithm of Gravity Addition FEM to calculate the safety factor of reinforced soil slope is offered and an example of reinforced soil slope is calculated by Strength reduction FEM and Gravity Addition FEM respectively. The calculation results confirm that the shortage of Strength reduction FEM can be avoided by using Gravity Addition FEM, and as the length of geotextile increases, the advantage is more obvious. Besides, with the algorithm optimized, the efficiency of Gravity Addition FEM can be improved.